Last summer Susan and I attended a family wedding in Essex. While there we did some sight seeing withmy sister and brother in law. Now, for some reason after all these years going the England I noticed how crooked the older homes are........just about all of them!



Europe is old and there are buildings there are old. However, the degree of settling ones sees with these old English homes is almost unsettling. Are they safe? What must it be like to live in one where floors, walls and ceilings can go different ways?

So, I asked my brother-in-law Ted about that as Ted is English-born and has a wealth of knowledge on such things being a contract planner.



Ted told me there is a simple explanation. First, hundreds of years ago building was not quite the engineering feat is is today. Logical, as this is true anywhere. Secondly, though these old English buildings were made of green pine which is a pre-dominate wood throughout the UK. Thridly, England is, after all, an island. What does an island have plenty of....sand! The sandy soil has a tendency to shift around and between this shifting motion and the green pine the building simply went with the lay of the land and twisted!

Apparently, this is very normal and structurally the building are, for the most part, sound!!

~~ Ralph Arata